Introduction & Overview of Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Death in Venice Introduction

Thomas Mann's initial inspiration for his novella, Death in Venice (1912), came from German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who fell in love with a teenage girl when he was seventy-four years old and vacationing in Marienbad. However, Mann's own trip to Venice supplied many of the details for the story. The story concerns Gustav von Aschenbach, an accomplished middle-aged writer who has dedicated his life to his art and the pursuit of beauty, and his love for Tadzio, a fourteen-year-old Polish boy vacationing with his family in Venice. Although Tadzio escapes the cholera epidemic engulfing the city, von Aschenbach does not, and he dies on the beach the day Tadzio leaves. Mann uses the story to explore the relationships between death and beauty, life and art, chaos and order—all recurring themes in his writing. Mann gives von Aschenbach German composer Gustav Mahler's first name and physical appearance, and Tadzio...
(read more)